2014 has probably been Deepika Padukone's best year since she made her debut in Om Shanti Om in 2007. I watched OSM in a theatre in Shimla when I was on a spiritual flight of fantasy. What struck me about her more than her beauty was her confidence. It was a zany and dramatic movie. And, she was working with Shahrukh Khan, who was at the height of his popularity. She did pretty well on debut. As years passed, she got more and more beautiful but her performances struggled to hit the right notes.
Kareena has been my favourite actresses. She brings a certain sense of effortlessness to many of her performances. Her performances bring me joy and it's like watching art in motion.
Stunning actresses rarely performed well consistently. Lara Dutta was really good in a few films but in an effort to be a part of hit films, she lost out on roles that showcased her acting ability. You'll see glimpses of it in Chalo Dilli. Katrina Kaif was another stunning actress who showed real promise in her early films with Akshay Kumar. Then, she started focussing on her smile, pout and good looks, which made her a huge star. But there were no performances worthy of mention. Priyanka Chopra also showed early promise. She got better but never really got a handle on her craft. Increasingly her performances got listless. I adored her sublime performance in Fashion. I also liked her in What's Your Rashee? and in that terrible film Pyaar Impossible. I felt let down by her performances and choice of films. I stopped going to the movies to watch Priyanka Chopra.
Kareena has been my favourite actresses. She brings a certain sense of effortlessness to many of her performances. Her performances bring me joy and it's like watching art in motion.
Stunning actresses rarely performed well consistently. Lara Dutta was really good in a few films but in an effort to be a part of hit films, she lost out on roles that showcased her acting ability. You'll see glimpses of it in Chalo Dilli. Katrina Kaif was another stunning actress who showed real promise in her early films with Akshay Kumar. Then, she started focussing on her smile, pout and good looks, which made her a huge star. But there were no performances worthy of mention. Priyanka Chopra also showed early promise. She got better but never really got a handle on her craft. Increasingly her performances got listless. I adored her sublime performance in Fashion. I also liked her in What's Your Rashee? and in that terrible film Pyaar Impossible. I felt let down by her performances and choice of films. I stopped going to the movies to watch Priyanka Chopra.
Deepika seemed to put in hard work but her acting wasn't getting 'there'. There was flicker I saw in Lafangey Parindey, which then disappeared. Khelein Hum Jee Jaan Sey made me feel she was losing it. And, then she bounced back with Cocktail and got on a roll with Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani, Chennai Express and Goliyon Ki Yeh Rasleela Ram-Leela. She was no longer just beautiful, she had become a real actress.
All this is documented and celebrated in the media. Now we'll move on to the other Deepika.
Some months ago, I felt compelled to write about an aspect of Deepika that actually makes her completely different from actresses of the past. It surprises me that the media hasn't picked it up so far. By making choices of a particular quality, this lass from Bangalore has broken new ground for actresses in the Hindi film industry.
If you look at her career carefully, you will find that she has always portrayed a strong and modern woman. Take any film, Om Shanti Om, Bachna Ae Haseeno, Chandni Chowk to China, Love Aaj Kal, Khelein Hum Jee Jaan Sey, Break Ke Baad, Lafangey Parindey, Cocktail, Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani, Chennai Express, Goliyon Ki Yeh Rasleela Ram-Leela, her character has always been strong. Her characters are never damsels in distress.
I can't remember a film, where she has been apologetic about her sexuality or a victim of it. In Cocktail, she was offered the role of Meera but she played Veronica. I remember Nandita Das calling the film regressive, which it was because the simple girl, Meera got the guy. But Deepika made Veronica more lovable than story had intended to be. In Love Aaj Kal, she doesn't bend backwards to accommodate Saif in her life. Similarly in Jawaani Hai Deewani, she wants to be loved for what she is and she does get loved like that. In Bachna Ae Haseeno, she teaches Ranbir a lesson by dumping him just like he had many women before her.
People find it very difficult to see her insecurities while making these choices because they see her as this beautiful goddess who no one can reject. Deepika in an interview with Rajeev Masand reveals how she believes that as an actress, acting is what should be her core ability and not her looks. She says that it took her a while to begin getting compliments for her performance and so she's also afraid that she might lose it.
Another important quality that I felt she had was a certain fortitude that generally comes with spirituality. Very rarely do people understand their growth in the context of their past, painful experiences. In an interview, she talked about how she made the mistake of making her lover's friends her friends and therefore not ending up with friends of her own when their relationship ended. When asked about how she was managing to pull in better performances, she revealed how always worked hard on her performance and perhaps her growth as a person contributed to her performance as an actor.
When she appears on TV, she is as forthright as she can be and she says things that no other woman dare say or perhaps even think about. She's more often than not talking real stuff and about being a person rather than about being a star. I find her forging a new path for actors in terms of gaining their freedom about being who they are and talking about it. She is doing it for herself. But in the process, she'll make a path for other.
Ultimately, whether Kareena or anyone else likes it or not, other actresses are portraying roles that she created for heroines of her stature in the industry.
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